Bennett Building to Undergo $4.5 Million Re-hab
By Robin Vinci | Editor at January 19, 2024 | 2:15 pm | Print
In the past few weeks buyers have been interested in purchasing several town properties. Among those is an Arch Street property that will be a $4.5 million project.
At 266 Arch Street stands the Bennett Building. At one time it was the Paula Maria Fashions Factory. It has been vacant for many years. The Neighborhood Housing Services of New Britain is looking to buy the building for $65,000.
“They want to transform the building,” said Mayor Erin Stewart. “It will be an adaptive re-use turned into retail space in the front with 23 housing units inside.”
There first is a lot of work that needs to be done. The agency will be responsible for environmental remediation.
“When you have old factories, like that, inevitably there is some type of hazardous waste. They will do all of that work. We do not know exactly what the environmental problems are, but likely it will be common manufacturing contaminants like asbestos, lead and some type of gasoline. It is nothing out of the ordinary, but you still have to put some money into it to make sure the building is clean of these things,” said Stewart.
The City took ownership of the building in 2011. At that time it was a church, but the church was not active at the building because it needed so much work.
Since the City took over there was some emergency work done on the garage, in back of the building, as it began to collapse on itself.
“There is a lot of history with this building,” said Stewart. “The City only owns so much property. We own property because nobody else wants to. Hazardous sites are very expensive to remediate. We are seeing a renewed interest in companies who have the means to do some of this work.”
Companies and individuals are looking into City property. During last week’s Council meeting two other additional properties were discussed.
A purchaser (Anthony and Pamela Bianca) is interested in property on Kilbourne Ave. and another individual (Marion Orlowski) made a proposal for 66 Winthrop St.
The Bianca’s are looking to purchase 65 Kilbourne Ave. for $30,000 to build a small house. They own the property abutting this one.
The Winthrop St. property was falling in on itself, but the buyer wants to renovate the three family home and live in it. He offered $20,000 for the property.
“The city barely owns any properties any more which is a good thing because I don’t think we belong in the real estate business,” said Stewart. “We know we want to increase density downtown and get additional housing. We don’t have good housing stock in the downtown area. We want people working, living and playing in the downtown area closer to CTFastrak. This Arch St. rehabilitation is another step in bringing a new kind of workforce living in our downtown.”
